Meat and the Mediterranean

Roughly 6 million years ago, when the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic, the middle sea started to shrink. Water inflows from river systems could not keep up with rates of evaporation and the once-fertile sea became a morass of marshes, salt flats and isolated brackish lakes.

700,000 years later the barrier to the Atlantic collapsed, and the Zanclean flood tore across the proto-European landscape. It has been estimated that 250,000 square kilometers of low-lying land were submerged within the first 48 hours (1, 2). 

Now the Mediterranean is receding again; not the sea this time but the diet. In 1995 the Mediterranean Diet was already considered to be at risk of becoming an ‘endangered species’ (3), and today, some three decades later, it is thin on the ground (4, 5). Humans left floundering in the dietary shallows are in contrast fatter, and sicker than ever.

Data from the politicized and largely discredited World Health Organisation show that the Mediterranean countries have achieved the highest rates of childhood obesity in Europe (6). The authors of this paper explained that typical Mediterranean staples such as fish, fruit, vegetables and olive oil have been substantially replaced by sugary drinks, sweets and junk food. 

‘The Mediterranean diet no longer exists,’ said one. ‘Those closest to it today are the Swedish kids.”

The prevailing definition of the Mediterranean diet is the diet traditionally eaten in the olive-growing areas of the Mediterranean nations up until the 1960’s (7). The inhabitants of those regions (ie southern Italy and most of Greece) were significantly protected from many of the so-called ‘lifestyle diseases”. These health advantages have largely disappeared now, and Greece has reverted to the currently unhappy mean (8). 

There are many reasons why the Med Diet has dried up.

Economic improvements have been a double edged-sword, replacing food scarcity with a plethora of industrial foods pushed aggressively by the food multinationals. The well-worn paths of coca-colonization have been greased by bought media and political hacks. Urbanisation, intergenerational shifts in women’s social roles and resulting changes in work patterns leaving less time for food preparation, have played an important role too.

But what exactly is, or was, the Mediterranean diet? A few deep pools remain, and they provide some fascinating clues.

Sardinia is one of the famous Blue Zones where more people live for longer than anywhere else. However, not all of Sardinia is in the zone. The Blue Zone (which derives its name from the magic marker first used to mark on the map those areas where most centenarians lived) includes only 15 small communities. One of these is Urzulei, a mountain village 1000 meters above and 30 kilometers from the sea. 

I recently spent a few days in Urzulei. I ate locally grown food with families who had lived there for generations, drank wine from their vineyards, visited the village cemetery and marveled at dates carved on the mausolea. Setting aside infant deaths and those who died in accidents, the average number of years between the forceps and the stone (9) appeared to be close to 90.

My guide, who knew many of those buried there, told me more about their life and death stories than I could have found anywhere else, showed me their photographs too.

I was also fortunate indeed to meet Dr Gianni Pes, one of the team that originally discovered the zone. From him I learned that meat, primarily pork and goat, had been a staple of the Sardinian Blue Zone diet, which also contained substantial amounts of cheese (10). Lots of plant foods, legumes and whole grains, and therefore a healthy microbiome, but this was not really a plant-based diet in the sense that most use this term today. 

That made sense to me. A childhood devotee of the Iliad, I had grown up with the idea that Mediterranean Bronze Agers had feasted on boar, oxen, goats and sheep. Homer’s epic poem contains many references to these foods, which are clearly linked in the text to vitality, strength and health. (In the Odyssey, food acquires different kinds of moral significance). And to mythology, we can add meta-analysis. 

A recent near-global research project supports Dr Pes’ findings (11). This vast study found that worldwide, meat intake is associated with longer life. The relationship remained significant when other key variables such as calorie intake, urbanization, obesity, education and carbohydrate crops were controlled.

Further support for carnivory comes from Okinawa and Nicoya, two more of the original Blue Zones. The long-lived Okinawans traditionally consume more meat that mainland Japanese (12) – and, surprisingly, a good deal of Spam (13), the equally long-lived Nicoyan males are also meat-eaters (14).

Closer to home, the 19^th century English ate copious amounts of meat and enjoyed better health expectancy than we do today (15). They equated meat with strength and vigor, and regarded beef tea and calf’s foot jelly as sources of nutritional goodness (16). 

In our etiolated age, however, meat has acquired a pervasive aura of unhealth. What caused this sea change? 

While vegetarianism has a long history, it was boosted in the mid-20^th century by Ancel Keys (17). As a result of his oeuvre, people became nervous of animal foods due to their content of cholesterol and saturated fat which, allegedly, caused heart disease. 

That story has more or less fallen apart. Cholesterol and saturated fats also occur in dairy products such as milk, butter, cheese and yoghurt – and yet the enormous PURE study has repeatedly shown that increased intakes of whole fat dairy products are associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (18, 19). 

PURE also found that fish, nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes are equally protective; in other word, almost every food which is not ultra-processed (17, 18). Whole grains are neutral, while refined grains and refined sugars are health-negative (19-21). 

Those who advocate for vegan or vegetarian diets may have ethical and perhaps environmental arguments on their side, but their health schtick is looking shaky (22-24). A plant-based diet with significant amounts of meat, fish and dairy is an omnivorous diet and we are, according to our dentition, gastrointestinal tracts and metabolic pathways, omnivores. Instead of frightening folk away from cholesterol and saturated fats, we should be encouraging increased intakes of unprocessed produce.

This takes us back to Sardinia and the nearby Greek island of Ikaria, which is another so-called Blue Zone.

In Sardinia, the Urzuleians are mountain folk and do not eat nearly as much fish as their neighbours in nearby coastal villages such as Santa Maria Navarrese – which is not in the Blue Zone. They ingest less omega 3 HUFA’a than their coastal cousins but appear to consume more herbal polyphenols and perhaps more prebiotic fiber (25), and due to the precipitous nature of their terrain take more physical exercise. 

Ikarians are different again. They eat a diet awash with potatoes (and other plant foods), but this is complemented by a near-total absence of watches and clocks – and so their secret may be a less stressful lifestyle.

All of this raises a somewhat philosophical point.

Based on decades of research, Pes and his colleagues believe that healthy ageing is a phenomenon that does not derive from any one dietary or other factor but appears when a certain critical mass of factors is arrived at. These factors include a healthy diet (which can be arrived at from different directions), meaningful levels of physical activity, rich social interactions, an unstressed lifestyle and a sense of purpose.

This form of emergent materialism seems very reasonable to me, and dovetails with dogs. 

Dogs are scavenging carnivores, not so far removed in dietary terms from opportunistic omnivores such as ourselves. ‘Forever Dog’, published in 2021 (26), found that similar principles held with regard to canine longevity. Individual animals which live very much longer than their breed average have key elements in common including physical activity, canine companionship, a varied environment and a natural and diverse diet. 

Whether they also have a sense of purpose was not recorded.

I have written elsewhere about the ways in which the health of humans and their pets run in parallel (27, 28) and these doggy data, which are new to me, are further evidence of the deep connections we have with our companion animals. The shift from raw and natural foods to ultra-processed kibble affects them in the same way as it does their owners, and has pushed us both to the top of the inter-species cancer league table (27, 29).  

It is time to start barking. 

On a more positive note, we cannot all live in a Blue Zone but we can bring parts of it home. 

The first action should probably be to ban red coke and all its sugared brethren. The link between sugar-sweetened beverages and adolescent obesity is clear (30), and plays a significant role in the Zanclean tides of obesity and diabetes currently flooding the Mediterranean area (ie 6, 31). There is a strong link to liver disease also (32). These are empty, inflammatory and unhealthy calories.

The second action, in my opinion, would be to increase our intakes of polyphenols, prebiotic fibers and omega-three HUFA’s; and put meat back on the menu, with the obvious exceptions of processed and charred meats.

It would also be good to take more exercise, grow our non-line social networks, and spend a little more time caring for others. In my experience this often comes back to the carer, and often positively. Abandon the MSM, which largely peddle fear and propaganda, and find multiple nuanced and/or conflicting smaller sources of information. Cultivate the skill of triangulation.

Finally, back to more solid ground. In Sardinia, my team took blood samples which have now been processed. I was looking specifically at 6:3 ratios and omega 3 indices, and can reveal that today’s Urzuleians are no longer in balance, if they ever were. Either they are keeping inflammation in check via polyphenols, or they are losing their religion.

This may eventually become another paper.

Next week:  Bite-sized history

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